


Je vous aime, j'ai le dit

by lockettxs



Series: Treasure [2]
Category: ATEEZ (Band), ATEEZ Cinematic Universe
Genre: ATEEZ Storyline, But also, Domestic Fluff, Gender Dysphoria, Healthy Relationships, Imagination, Jeong Yunho-centric, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pirate ATEEZ Ensemble, Sexual Fantasy, Speculative, Teenage Rebellion, Trans Jeong Yunho, Trans Kim Hongjoong, Trans Male Character, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, ateezverse, relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-20 12:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30004650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockettxs/pseuds/lockettxs
Summary: Yunho would have to be lying if he said that he’d never considered what it would be like to be with any of the others. After all, two years was a long time to spend around one group of people for almost every hour of the day.Or: how Yunho imagines it would be like to be with his crewmates in a less-than-platonic way.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Jeong Yunho, Choi San/Jeong Yunho, Jeong Yunho/Everyone, Jeong Yunho/Jung Wooyoung, Jeong Yunho/Kang Yeosang, Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong, Jeong Yunho/Park Seonghwa, Jeong Yunho/Song Mingi
Series: Treasure [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207142
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Je vous aime, j'ai le dit

**Author's Note:**

> Same notes as the series in general. TLDR; this is set in the ATEEZverse, so backstories and relationship dynamics are based on that rather than real life. Please don't come into my comments telling me about how Yunho and Mingi were the childhood bffs in real life, I know--this isn't real life. 
> 
> The title is slightly modified from the French in the Grimes song by the name Artangels _(je comprends / j'ai le dit)_ because I was listening to Artangels a lot on the day I drafted this, and I also don't speak French so any French I end up using is going to be dragged up and patched together from five different sources and my French-speaking friends.

_ \- Mingi - _

When Yunho was little, he had been told that boys always grew up to be taller than girls--so, when he grew up tall, it had made perfect sense to him. Perhaps not to the outside world, but what did the outside world need to know? What did they deserve? He learnt about hormones in biology class, how different ones did different things, how everything was all connected together and tied up in a neat little package, and how he was the anomaly to those chemicals.

Mingi was the only one on their crew who came close to him in height. Yunho was still taller. Mingi said to him that that had never happened before--that he was used to towering above everyone his age. Yunho had told him that he better get used to it, because they were going to be friends. 

In his imagination, Mingi kissed him rough, but only at first. Because he was rough. He was the troublemaker, the delinquent, but he wasn’t violent. There was nothing inherent to his being that made him behave that way.  _ “Okay, Mr Therapy, tell me what it is?”  _ Mingi would say when he pulled away (Yunho wasn’t sure where he proposed his theory in this conversation, possibly before Mingi even started kissing him.) 

It was because he didn’t have the room to be broken, to act weak. Yunho understood it better than most, even within their group. If you act like something bothers you, people pity you, and nothing stings worse than someone else’s pity. It’s like venom--the  _ ‘oh, you poor thing’ _ s and the  _ ‘I wish I knew how to help’ _ s. There were two routes to go down; you could fight back, you could prove you were tough, that you didn’t need anyone’s pity. That was the first. And the second? You could act as if you weren’t bothered. You could sit in the back of biology class, diligently taking notes on the ‘female’ and ‘male’ hormones, and knowing that your teacher  _ knows  _ not only that you’re listening, but that what they’re saying is incorrect. You can smile and laugh and pretend as if you don’t notice. 

_ “But you noticed,”  _ Mingi would say. And Yunho would nod. 

_ “And you weren’t that tough,”  _ Yunho would say. 

Because, see, that was the thing; they both knew how to put up a front. They both knew how to be something that they weren’t. 

Mingi was a lover who understood him. Perhaps not on a physical level, but on an emotional one. That lit a fire between them, some sort of passion, something that couldn’t be broken. 

In his daydreams, it was never too long before their lips found each other again. This time gentler, more honest. He’d lose himself in that kiss, the softness of his lips, fighting to be as close as possible, even for just a moment. Sometimes, in his daydreams, it was just that--a moment--they would exchange a passionate kiss and then Yunho would decide that he would pick up the fantasy later. Other times they would go further. A lot further.

In the bedroom, he imagined a lover who was surprisingly tender, but who wasn’t  _ careful.  _ He wasn’t afraid to touch or to move or to make the most of--uh-- _ what was there _ in the way that others would. Mingi knew what it was to have people act as if they were afraid to break him. He wasn’t uncertain--to Yunho, they were two men, and they had two bodies that happened to fit together pretty nicely. And when he mused on it, he imagined that Mingi would see it the same way; whatever difference there was would be secondary to the activity they were partaking in.

Then, usually, Yunho would get too flustered to continue the thought and have to shake the idea away, much to the confusion of whoever happened to be around. The Mingi phase only lasted a few weeks, anyway. About until they actually had the conversation about not showing vulnerability in real life and it didn’t involve any kissing. Possibly because Mingi kept making heart eyes at Wooyoung--although Yunho wasn’t sure whether that was just a generic lifelong friend thing or genuine romantic feelings. 

But, y’know, if Mingi ever asked, Yunho wasn’t quite sure that he would say no to blowing off some steam with him. 

_ \- Hongjoong - _

Hongjoong was cute--he never said it, he knew it was a weird thing to say; weird to think and especially weird to share aloud. Hongjoong was older than him (albeit only by six months), it would be disrespectful to go around calling him cute.

He imagined Hongjoong would be distant as a partner--he would care, yes, but his attention was split in so many different directions that it would be difficult to keep it for any length of time. The kind of person who forgot things at random; had to keep a notebook to remember what date your anniversary was, but remembered the exact date of the first time you argued. He was scattered in a hundred different places. That happened to intelligent people, Yunho knew. 

It would be like having a boss who you also made out with, who was also an old friend and also half the reason you finally got up the courage to come out. Hongjoong was a lot of things to him. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was to Hongjoong--cute younger friend, sure--adorable, probably, back when they first got to know each other, in his enthusiasm, with all the questions he was asking.  _ How did you know? How do you get your chest so flat? Hey, Hongjoong, how the heck are you so cool? _

The physical details of any hypothetical relationship between them obscured themselves under blurred, black smears in his mind, entirely out of focus. But there had been one time--a time when his hyung had been brushing powder contour around his brow bone, talking about where to shade so that he looked more like a comic book hero than a k-pop star, splitting his face into halves to demonstrate the difference--when Yunho had opened his eyes to look at him, and had felt the impossible urge to lean forward and close the gap between their mouths. 

It passed as quickly as it came. A misfiring of neurons--just a random thought. He still thought about it sometimes. What would have happened if he had? 

Would they have kissed, suddenly finding some immeasurable passion that they had never before realised existed between them? Would they have fallen into an instant fairy tale romance? Would they have kissed and felt...nothing? That had happened before, too. Yunho knew enough to know what it felt like to have no spark. He wondered, would he try again, try to make the spark appear? Or would he sit back and let it go, ready to move on? After all, it was better to know than not, right? That, of course, was if Hongjoong would even accept being kissed; there was always the fact that he could lean away, reject him. 

He was glad that thought had stayed as just that. Every way, his life would be changed, his relationship with Hongjoong would be changed; he preferred it as it was. 

_ \- San - _

San was soft, and Yunho liked soft because he was soft, too. 

San was easy to love. He loved all of them, and that shone through every action he took, no matter how sneaky it was; it was hard for Yunho not to love someone who loved him that much. And, heck, they could already be in a relationship, the way they flirted sometimes. He didn’t exactly  _ hate  _ the idea--it was different, sure, it upset the balance of their life as it was at the moment, but he could probably live with good-morning kisses on the lips from Choi San, and falling asleep curled up in each others’ warmth. He’d learn to tolerate his soft snoring. Eventually. 

They could love each other softly. 

Cringily, too, Hongjoong would probably say. 

Yunho liked to entertain the idea of long sunday mornings where he’d card his hands through San’s hair as they lay together, doing nothing--thinking, maybe talking. Talking about nothing. Maybe about the future. What sort of future they could have together with the lifestyle that they led--it would be hard to settle down in a nice little blue suburban with a cat and a dog and a picket fence. San wasn’t really the picket-fence type, though. More of a cute little apartment, minimalist, small and cozy, with a comfy couch and a decent TV that they could curl up together in front of and play a fake fire on while they drank wine in the evenings and talked about their day. 

And then they’d run a bath together, lots of bubbles and lavender oil. And they’d laugh and kiss and whatever happened would happen, and they’d dry each other off with fluffy white towels, get ready for bed. Yunho would comb through San’s damp hair again while he brushed his teeth, trying to speak without toothpaste foam spilling all down his chin. And he’d kiss him as soon as he was done because his breath was fresh, and he was all clean, and it didn’t matter that he was all red and puffy from the steam from the bath, because he always looked amazing in Yunho’s eyes. 

So, they’d go to bed. Yunho liked to sleep earlier, so he’d curl up with all of the lights on his side out, while San would read with a booklight until he got tired and wrapped his arms around his lover to settle down for the night. 

Muting the alarm in the morning, putting the cat out of the room before sex, texting grocery lists back and forth--those were the sorts of things he imagined with San. A softer life. A more peaceful life. 

It was a life that couldn’t, ultimately be his, but it was a pleasant fantasy to entertain, even if just for a few minutes of a difficult day. Even if just for a second whenever San hooked their arms together while they were out, or tackled him from behind as he was working. He didn’t need to have any real investment in the scenes he created in his head for them to bring him comfort. 

They were soft, and Yunho liked soft because he was soft, too. 

_ \- Seonghwa - _

Seonghwa was a gentle lover. Yunho could guess that much just from observing the way he did--the way he did  _ anything.  _ His movements were always so precise, so careful; he always made sure that he wasn’t overstepping, that everything had been kept in line, just right. Seonghwa was an arrow--he was a shot, he tore through the air toward a target, but he did so with aim. 

Gentle and purposeful. Maybe that was the perfect combination for a mature, adult relationship. Maybe Yunho would rather leave the mature adult relationships to the mature adults, because he knew just from the fact that Seonghwa had said nothing yet that he wasn’t interested. 

Still, was it so much of a crime to imagine being loved by a beautiful man? By someone who would run his hands gently over his body? He’d keep his touch soft and subtle, just enough to be felt, just enough to tease, not enough to deliver until Yunho reciprocated in his entirety, offered himself up from head to toe. Together they could know pleasure. They could get to know it well; luxurious and indulgent; passionate and forthright. But still, despite the fire, they could find a way to move together gently. 

He couldn’t see a life with Seonghwa in the same way that he could with San. Seonghwa  _ was  _ the blue suburban, cat and dog, white-picket-fence type. Dreams of a nuclear family with two parents and one-point-five children and PTA meetings, science fairs and scuffed up knees that needed to be kissed better. That was a world that Yunho knew well--it was a world that he had grown up in, but it was also a world that had crashed down around him far too young for him to idealise it. 

He wasn’t the type of person who fitted into that sort of future. Sure, he could technically have children if he wanted to, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to do that. That didn’t mean that he wanted to share a body that he so thoroughly loved as his  _ own,  _ a body that he was able to exist in partly because it was so uniquely  _ his.  _ He wasn’t yet a mature adult who could make a mature adult judgement call about what he wanted from his future.

That was just how it was.

_ \- Yeosang - _

Everyone had crushed on Yeosang at some point. That was just a fact of their hashtag boatlife. Yeosang was gorgeous, and funny, and had a captivating angsty backstory. Their running joke was that Yeosang was the one guy that even a straight man could fall for--sometimes, with the way Yunho caught Jongho looking at him, he thought it was more than a joke. 

Yeosang was the only person in their crew that Yunho had actually kissed before. 

It had been a stupid dare.  _ Oh, so prove it and kiss Yeosang right now.  _ Hongjoong had joked that he wasn't brave enough to make the first move on anyone, but he'd done it. He'd kissed Yeosang. He'd reached out across their little circle of friends and taken his head between his hands, and pressed his lips against his. 

He'd expected chastity, something simple and quick, but Yeosang had  _ kissed back.  _ And he'd kissed back for real, wound his fingers through Yunho’s hair, pulled him closer into the embrace. He still remembered the feeling of breathlessness he had been left with afterwards. 

Yunho wanted more. That was all he’d been able to think at the time. That he wanted more, and he didn’t want it to end. But they were drinking cheap beer and joking around in a circle where they were meant to share stories and actually spend time together, and it really defeated the point if he lost himself in Yeosang’s lips, no matter how much he wanted to.

Something still captivated him, though, about that moment. There had been something so intense between them, even if it was just for a moment, that he couldn’t help but wonder if Yeosang had been the real deal, if whatever had happened there was the sort of thing that was meant to happen with the person you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with. 

In his imagination, there would be nights when he and Yeosang sat on the deck and drank awful beers together, and he would run his hand along the line of Yeosang’s jaw, guide his head until they were facing each other, until their eyes were locked. In his head, he would pull him into him, feel the warmth of his lips, savour that intensity again. This time for real. For as much time and with as much privacy as they wanted.

_ Do you remember when we were teenagers? _

He would say that, and Yeosang, milimetres from his lips, would murmur the response into what little air was between them, too quiet for him to hear. But he wouldn’t need to hear, because he’d know the answer in the way he kissed him again. And again. 

And again.

Sometimes, in his delusional, drunken mind, he entertained the idea that Yeosang was his soulmate. Having a soulmate that smart, that kind and beautiful--that was all anyone could ask for, but Yeosang was a good kisser, that was the truth that the hopeless romantic within him knew. The hopeless romantic within him didn’t want to accept that was  _ all  _ it was; Yeosang was a good kisser, and he had been kissed by Yeosang.

And maybe it was okay to fantasise, to imagine that he and Yeosang were destined for each other, because the Yeosang that wandered through the planes of his imagination was far from the same one who inhabited the real world, the one who he joked around with over coffee in the early morning, and who mixed up sugar and salt when they cooked together.

Maybe in another life. 

_ \- Wooyoung - _

He and Wooyoung would be a bad idea; he knew that. He knew that better than he knew anything else. They were fire and fire--there was no balance between them. If they lit up, they’d burn out in moments, but there was no doubt that it would be the most fun he’d had in years. 

It would be breaking into corner shops and stealing liquor kind of fun, running hand in hand away from broken glass and burglar alarms. It would be climbing over railway bridges and getting piss-drunk as they watched the trains pass by beneath them, as they kissed each other numb and senseless, until they could barely remember their own names. And if they woke up in jail, they would just call their hyungs to bail them out. Hongjoong would probably complain that Yunho had been so much more responsible before Wooyoung, but he wouldn’t really mean it. And they’d do it all again a few days later.

He and Wooyoung were teenage stupidity and bad decisions. They were smoking out back of nightclubs, tasting cigarettes on each other’s lips, even if they knew the smoke would destroy them. They were drunk sex in public bathrooms. They were starting fights with strangers just to feel alive, totally out of control. No one in the driver’s seat, no Jesus take the wheel, no one flying the plane.

And they were burning up and blowing out windows, explosive, probably, when things ended between them--because they’d have to eventually. 

Yunho wasn’t sure what they’d fight about. Maybe money, maybe one of them would finally do something the other thought crossed the line from just stupid dumb fun into actual dangerous behaviour. Maybe Wooyoung would almost hit someone with their car. God, that’s the sort of thing Yunho could kill someone over. Or maybe Yunho would start thinking about the future, and Wooyoung would scoff. He only ever wanted to dance, to chase his pipe dream at the cost of all the people around him, no matter what that happened to be. 

So they’d fight, throw things, shout. Then they’d end up back in bed, tangled up together. Rinse and repeat until the staying wasn’t worth the fights anymore. And one of them would leave in the middle of the night, run away to god knows where. 

It would tear their group apart. Not that it hadn’t eventually happened anyway, but if they’d done it that way, they might not have been able to come so easily back together.

That was before they started to travel, though.

After...Yunho didn’t know what things could be like after. He and Wooyoung were different now. They all were. They’d still be sparks and fire, maybe, but instead of a wildfire burning down a forest, they could be the kind of fire that burned low and consistent, warmed the space around it. They were older now, wiser. Wooyoung could still be impulsive. Yunho could still be overly passionate. But they knew their vices, now, they knew how to hold each other back, to steady one another. 

There were still bad decisions to make, sure, but the scope changed. Everything changed. They couldn’t afford to be as wild as they would’ve when they were younger, and that would alter the story at its core. The very foundation would be different. Yunho still hadn’t quite allowed himself the time and space to consider how things might be different in this life. How Wooyoung might be the only person who he could love under these circumstances where their lifestyle wasn’t sabotage. 

_ \- Jongho - _

Jongho was the perfect boyfriend. Strong, protective, family-oriented. He was a good cook. He was responsible. He didn’t mind work, which never made any sense to any of the others. Sweet and caring, he always tried to look out for his hyungs whenever possible, made sure they ate three meals a day, drank two litres of water, got enough sleep when they were sick. 

He was brilliant, they all saw it from the moment they first met him. He was chasing dreams but, even if he failed them, he would be successful. He was the kind of person who’d always, in every life, manage to land a stable job, even if it was something he wasn’t passionate about. He could provide for his spouse, for his family, he could be home on weekends to play with the kids and take them to their sports games, and he’d only project his own dreams onto them  _ slightly.  _

He was the perfect partner. He was the best of all of them, they all knew that. 

Of course, that was ignoring the fact that Jongho was as straight as a ruler--and not the monarchical kind. He was as straight as a Roman road, straight as a level reader, straight as a laser, straight as--well. Jongho was straight. Because of course the best of them had to be straight. 

Yeah, Yunho wasn’t going to be getting together with Jongho. Ever. 

**Author's Note:**

> For some extra fun, Yunho is not entirely correct about some of his assumptions. See if you can guess which ones! Please leave a comment/kudos if you liked this fic or bookmark it; any of those are a great way of letting a writer know that you appreciate their content. 
> 
> If you're reading this as a standalone without having read the fic before it, hello! Please consider giving that one a read and supporting this series as a whole.


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